Google's busy week: Android Pay, Fiber, groceries and cars

15 September 2015

Transcript

Google is good source of fiber in more ways than one.
I'm Bridget Carey.
This is your c/net update.
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Apple is Dominating the tech news with all of its shiny new gadgets, but it's arch nemesis Google has been quite busy with its own projects.
Google launched Android Pay, giving select Android phones the ability to make payments in stores when tapped to a sensor during checkout.
It's a rebranding of Google Wallet, which of course has been out for years now, but it faced many challenges, and it wasn't adopted by all phones or carriers.
In contrast, Android Pay works with all Android devices that have a special NFC chip and that they're running Kit Kat 4.4 or a newer version of the operating system.
It works with any mobile carrier as well as major credit cards, and many banks and credit unions.
Later in the year Google is going to open up Android Pay for shopping on mobile apps And it'll also let you add loyalty cards.
And try to pay as a separate app you have to download from the Google Play app store, but some new phones will have it pre-installed.
So if you're wondering what happened to Google Wallet, well that app is still around, but now it's only used as a way to send money to your friends.
Meanwhile, the company says it's thinking about expanding the Google fiber high-speed internet service.
To three more cities: San Diego, Irvine, California, and Louisville, Kentucky.
But it's not a guarantee.
Google is really just starting talks with city leaders to figure out logistics.
Fiber offers speeds of one gigabit a second, which is about 100 times faster than average US broadband speeds.
Google Fiber is only in three US cities now With six others coming soon and even more listed as potential expansions.
And that's not the only fiber Google wants to bring to your home.
I'm talking about dietary fiber because Google may soon deliver fresh food groceries to your door.
According to Bloomberg, Google is starting to test grocery deliveries at two US cities.
One of them is San Francisco.
That would give Amazon and Instacart some new competition.
And someday, maybe, it'll be delivered by a self driving car, because Google just hired an auto industry veteran as its chief executive to run its self driving car business.
John Krafcik, President of online car shopping website TrueCar, Well the CEO of self driving vehicles.
He's a mechanical engineer with experience at Ford and Hyundai.
Last week Google did say it was planning to make a few hundred self driven cars.
And of course we can't go a whole show without mentioning some iPhone news because you know iPhone.
Apple says preorders of the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are on pace to surpass the last year's first weekend orders of 10 million.
Now this year for the first time, customers in China could preorder the iPhone at launch So that certainly helps get those pre sale numbers higher.
That's it for this tech news update where you can keep up with all the latest at cnet.com.
From our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey.